She nodded and they followed her father into the living room. He gestured to them to sit down before holding out a hand to Meyer and Logan. “I’m Peter Stewart.” Meyer shook his hand.
“Meyer Smith.”
“Logan Farraday.” Logan shook her father’s hand. He took a seat opposite her.
“I’ve been worried about you, Sarah. You haven’t called or written. Have you been all right?” Peter Stewart cleared his throat. He clearly looked uncomfortable.
She didn’t want to talk about the intervening years. “I’m fine. Is Mother here?”
“She’s upstairs. She should be down in a minute if she heard the doorbell.”
“Peter! Who was at the door?” As if on cue, her mother’s imperious voice cut through the uncomfortable silence. Her mother glided in the room but came to an abrupt halt when she saw them. Her eyes went wide and her mouth hung open. It wasn’t often her mother was speechless.
“Hello, Mother. How are you?”
Teresa Stewart’s hand flew to her throat, and then she appeared to pull herself together. Apparently, she’d never expected to see her only daughter again. “Sadie. How nice to see you. What brings you here?”
Just like that, the temperature dropped in the room about twenty degrees. Sadie shivered and Logan wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“I came to talk to both of you.” Sadie lifted her chin. She was done playing the role of second-class citizen. “I have a few things to say. Have a seat.”
Her mother’s lips tightened. “I’m generally not invited to have a seat in my own home, but fine.”
“Teresa,” her father said, his voice edgy and hard. She’d never heard him speak that way before. “This is our daughter. Try to behave yourself for once.”
Teresa Stewart’s eyes narrowed but she sat down next to her husband. “Are these your friends?”
“This is Meyer Smith and Logan Farraday. They helped me find you.”
Her mother nodded. “I believe you had something to say.”
Peter slapped the couch cushion. “For the love of God, Teresa, shut up. This is our Sarah. We’ve already lost one child. Do you have to drive away the second?”
The anguish in her father’s voice was clear. Perhaps he regretted his treatment of his only daughter. Sadie straightened her shoulders, determined to have her say.
“I came to tell you a few things. The first thing is that I’m okay. Despite your cold indifference to me as parents, I am fine. I have people who love me. I have a home now which is more than I can say about the house I grew up in.”
“How dare—” Teresa began but Peter interrupted her.
“For the last time, shut up. We deserve every word of this. Go on, Sarah.”
Sadie wasn’t sure she could make it through this. She could feel tears prick at the back of her eyes. Her father had never before taken her side and she found it overwhelming that he had, at last, done so. She had to force herself to keep talking. She had more to say.
“I’m sorry about Alan. If there was any way I could have saved his life, believe me, I would have. It wasn’t to be. I can only imagine the pain of losing a child, but I also lost a brother.” Her mother looked like she wanted to say something but one warning glance from her husband kept her silent. “I never had parents who loved me. I’m not sure why you couldn’t love me. Why you only had enough love for one child. For years, I thought I was unlovable. I know now that’s not true. I also thought people would only want things from me. They would take and take and never give. These men have shown me that’s not true also.”
She had a lump in her throat and she had to swallow hard. This was more difficult than she’d ever imagined. Her father’s eyes were bright with tears and they were starting to fall down his lined cheeks.
“I did love you, Sarah. I swear. I know I made a mistake, and God, I’m so sorry. So very sorry. If I could take it all back I would. I would try and make it better. Do better.” He hung his head. “But I can’t. I can only tell you I regret everything.” He looked her in the eyes. “It just hurt so much. Watching your brother slip away from us day by day was horrible. I think we thought if we never extended love to you, it wouldn’t hurt if we lost you, too. That was stupid, of course. When you left, it was like a knife in my chest. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t thought about you. Wondered how you were.”
Tears spilled over in her own eyes, her heart aching as she remembered all the times she’d wanted his love and affection. “But you never tried to come after me, did you?”
He shook his head, his eyes desolate. “I thought you were better off without us. We didn’t deserve your love.”
Teresa Stewart stood, her lips quivering. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this. We gave you everything and you were an ungrateful child. Peter, escort this young woman out of our house.”
Peter Stewart shook his head. “Dear God, woman. I will not escort Sarah out of her own home. You, however, are welcome to leave anytime you like. We did wrong by our daughter and I intend to beg and plead for a second chance.”
Sadie’s mother’s face twisted into something ugly. “Go to hell, Peter.”
“I’ve already been there,” he replied calmly. “Frankly, living with you all these years was hell.”
Her mother twirled on her heel and dashed up the stairs. Peter turned back to Sadie. “I’m sorry about your mother. She’s never been the same since Alan was diagnosed. She was once a warm, loving woman, but that was many years ago.” He shook his head. “It isn’t about you. Your mother was a young bride ill-equipped to handle a child with special needs. She threw all of herself into Alan. There was nothing left for you. Or for me, but it was my choice to stay all these years. She simply isn’t capable of what other people think of as love. There is a part of her that wants to reach out to people, I think. But she’s allowed fear to rule her world for more than twenty years. At this point in her life, she feels more comfortable with the fear.”
Sadie leaned against her men for strength. “I’ve never seen that side of her. I feel sorry for her.”
Her father nodded in agreement. “I do, too. She’s missed out on so many things in life. But those are her choices. She’s had a myriad of moments when she could have made another choice. She didn’t. I’ve learned to deal with things over the years. I, too, made decisions I regret bitterly.”
A long silence then Logan patted her knee. “Would you like us to give you and your father a few minutes alone?”
“No.” Sadie shook her head and stood. “I’ve said what I needed to say. We can go now.” She turned to her father who had also stood. He seemed lost and unsure as to what to do. She wasn’t any more certain than he was. This visit had gone quite different than she’d envisioned. “Thank you for seeing me today and talking to me. It would have been easy to not listen. I appreciate the apology.”
An apology would never make up for her childhood, but the adult inside could find some forgiveness in her heart. Forgiveness, but not forgetfulness. Not yet anyway.
Peter Stewart’s lips twisted. “It was, literally, the least I could do.” He reached for her again and this time caught her hand in his. “I don’t have any right to ask anything of you, but I’m an old man getting older, so I will. Will you keep in touch? Let me know how you are and what’s going on in your life?”
Her nature was to be cautious when her parents asked anything of her, although a part of her yearned for a parent’s love. “I’ll think about it.”
Her father dropped her hand and stepped back. “That’s more than I deserve, Sarah. You always had a generous heart. I hope you can find a place in your heart to maybe let me in your life. Just a little.” He looked at Meyer and Logan as if seeing them for the first time. “Which one of these is your young man?”
Sadie lifted her chin and linked her arms with Logan and Meyer. “They both are. They love me and I love them.”
Her father’s eyes widened and then he nodded. “I g
uess you deserve more love than the average person. I’m just sorry you had to wait so long to get it.”
“We need to go. It was good seeing you, Dad.” She turned and headed down the walk, Logan and Meyer on each side. She glanced over her shoulder and her father stood there looking old and bereft. She stopped and tried to give him a smile. “Merry Christmas, Dad.”
The corners of his mouth tipped up and the light seemed to come back into his eyes. “Merry Christmas, Sarah. I hope I see you soon.”
She took a deep breath. She was an adult and it was her choice what to give. She decided to give a tiny bit of trust. “You will. Maybe after New Year’s.”
“Then Happy New Year. Drive careful.”
She brushed a stray tear that had snuck out of her eye. “Happy New Year. We’ll be careful.”
The three of them loaded into the car and headed for the highway. Sadie tried to make sense of what had happened. Her mother hadn’t changed really. If anything, she’d become colder and more remote. Her mother really didn’t love anyone but herself. She was locked in her grief for Alan and probably would be the rest of her life.
Her father was a different story. Time seemed to have made him older and wiser, but much sadder. Sadie couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to have lived with her mother all these years, day in and day out. Perhaps her father had paid some penance after all. Sadie sure couldn’t have done what he did.
His efforts to reach out to his only daughter had seemed sincere. Perhaps they could find a way to build some kind of a relationship. Maybe never father and daughter, but as friends.
“Maybe I can have some sort of a family,” she said, breaking the silence. “Dad and I will never be close but we might be able to forge something new. Something different.”
“You know,” Logan began, never turning from the passenger seat. He was staring out the window as if the passing landscape was fascinating. “Husbands are family, too.”
Her heart skipped a beat, then shot into a gallop. “Yes, husbands are. One problem, though. I don’t have a husband.”
Meyer cleared his throat. “Your father was right. A woman like you deserves more than one husband. I think two is the right number for you.”
Sadie smiled and tapped her chin. “Two is a good number. I just can’t imagine who would want to marry me. I think I snore.”
Logan snorted. “Meyer’s the one that snores, babe. If you can sleep through that, you can sleep through Armageddon.” He twisted in his seat. “Seriously, we want you to marry us.”
The awkwardness of the last half hour dissolved away and happiness filled her heart and soul. These men were her family. The people of Plenty, too. She loved them and the town. She’d found her way home.
Today, she’d also found a parent. Time would tell as to what would happen but at the moment she felt very magnanimous.
“What about you, Meyer? Does Logan speak for you?” Meyer had been silent about marriage so far.
“I need to keep my eyes on the road, but yes, we want you to marry us. Although, we’d talked about asking you in a more romantic setting than the car on I-275.”
Sadie settled back into the leather seat. “You can ask me again in a more romantic setting. I’ll say yes, by the way.”
Her men looked at each other and grinned. “If you’ve already said yes, what point is another proposal?” Logan asked. She could tell he was simply teasing her. She’d tease right back.
“I want a great story to tell our four children.”
Meyer laughed. “Four? We better get started then.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Sadie agreed. “Logan?”
Logan looked shell-shocked. “Four? You want four?”
Sadie shrugged. “Okay, you win. Five.”
Meyer punched Logan’s arm. “Quit while you’re ahead. Let’s hit the nearest mall and find this beautiful woman an engagement ring. I want this official. Wait until Mom and Dad find out.”
It was going to be a great new year and a fantastic new life. She had love, a family, and she’d faced the demons of her past.
With a little help from the men she loved most in the world.
THE END
WWW.LARAVALENTINE.NET
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I’ve been a dreamer my entire life. So, it was only natural to start writing down some of those stories that I have been dreaming about.
Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I fall in love with all of my characters. They are perfectly imperfect with the hopes, dreams, desires, and flaws that we all have. I want them to overcome obstacles and fear to get to their happily ever after. We all should. Everyone deserves their very own sexy, happily ever after.
I grew up in the cold but beautiful plains of Illinois. I now live in Central Florida with my handsome husband, who’s a real, native Floridian, and my son whom I have dubbed “Louis the Sun King.” They claim to be supportive of all the time I spend on my laptop, but they may simply be resigned to my need to write.
When I am not working at my conservative day job or writing furiously, I enjoy relaxing with my family or curling up with a good book.
For all titles by Lara Valentine, please visit
www.bookstrand.com/lara-valentine
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Plenty to Give [Plenty, FL 7] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 17